Cordangan Church (in ruins) — Cordangan

At the base of a N-facing slope of Slievenamuck hill, in meadow. The church is orientated slightly NE-SW and is located parallel and close to the N wall of the graveyard (TS067-056001-). Both the church and graveyard are very overgrown. The church (dims. 8.58m N-S; wall T 0.9m) is built of sandstone conglomerate rubble, roughly coursed, with a rubble core bonded with lime mortar. According to the OS letters in 1840, ‘The east gable and north wall are destroyed down to the very foundations but the south wall and part of the west gable to the same height with it remain. This building was sixty seven feet three inches [20.5m] in length and twenty one feet six inches [6.55m] in breadth and its sidewalls were about eleven feet [3.3m] high and three feet [0.9m] thick’ (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 13 (35)). At some stage later in the 19th century a wall (H 1.1m; T 0.5m) was built on the line of the original N wall. The S wall (max. H 3.2m) bows slightly internally towards the centre and much of its internal face has collasped. The OS letters mention a doorway towards the W end of the S wall which was ‘much disfigured but it can be ascertained that it was six foot [1.82m] in height and two feet eight inches [0.8m] in width and was covered at the top with a lintel’ (ibid., 13-14 (35)). This doorway is still evident but has been heavily repaired and the original hanging eye re-inserted. There is a flat-headed window, with a double external chamfer, at the E end of the S wall which appears to have been reconstructed, though it is within an original, now broken out, splaying embrasure. The quoins at the SW angle have collapsed and the SE angle has been rebuilt. The W gable (H 2.4m; T 1m) is featureless except for a rectangular ope (H 0.19m; Wth 0.32m) roughly centrally placed at the base of the wall which splays internally (H 0.6m; Wth 0.4m). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 12 December 2012